David R. Godine, Publisher
Softcover
Pages: 96
Size: 5.5" x 8.25"
Published: June 2006
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A vision of human life, both its hardships and its rich possibilities. Opening with poems about growing up with family conflict in a New England of broken farms and towns, The Ghosts of You and Me explores the limits of personal wishes and American dreams.

Here too are haunting encounters with ghost selves, the dead, and the gangsters in old movies; the poignant hopefulness of comb-overs; and a transcendent series of lyrics that celebrate self-acceptance and the spiritual dimension of “life on the ground.” 

Critical Praise

“McNair's poems are full of people with lives like his own, like ours, ordinary lives that are incredibly unique and complex.”
—Library Journal

"Plainspoken portraits of hardscrabble Maine men and women join laconic, trustworthy meditations on middle age, old age, mourning and love in this sixth outing from the underrated McNair."
—Publishers Weekly 

" McNair strikes me as one of the great storytellers of contemporary poetry, a poetry which has largely given up narratives, perhaps because they require people other than the poet or in addition to the poet, a challenging task for solipsists . . . Never before have I found McNair's brand of humor so subtle and affirming. Nor when he wanders from his tales can I recall him writing such perfect small lyrics about damn near anything."
—Philip Levine, Ploughshares